


if you stay, i would even wait all night

by reachedthebitterend



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 07:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20205802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reachedthebitterend/pseuds/reachedthebitterend
Summary: Alex asks Michael to run away with him.





	if you stay, i would even wait all night

**Author's Note:**

> written on 03/07/19

The pain is _excruciating_ (overwhelming, terrifyingly permanent), but still through the pounding in his ears and the throbbing in his hand, he makes out the pained sound that Alex makes when he grabs his father’s arm and his father backhands him, his attention shifting from Michael to Alex instantaneously.

Michael drops to the floor cradling his hand in his lap, and he swallows hard and scrambles to keep ahold of the vestiges of his control. Especially when the paralyzing fear starts being leached out of his system by the cool numbness of rage as he hears Alex pleading with his father to stop.

“Clean up your mess,” Jesse Manes says voice cold. “I’m giving you an hour. If you’re not back home by then, there won’t be anything left for you to clean up.”

Michael feels like he should be more scared of the violence promised in that voice, but he’s more concerned with the way that Alex makes a pained noise at the back of his throat and stutters through his answering yes.

He hears Manes scoff and then Alex being dropped to the floor and then the door closing with a sound like a guillotine.

Michael counts the spaces between his rapid heartbeats. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine before Alex is moving, crawling closer.

“Guerin,” he says voice breathless and worried. “Talk to me.”

Michael tries to say something, but all that comes out is a mumbled string of syllables that don’t really make sense.

God, Michael would kill for a bottle of acetone right now.

“Okay, okay,” Alex says and he’s breathing hard and sounds like he’s seconds away from panicking, but he’s there hands fluttering across Michael’s shoulders.

“We have to-to get your shirt on and wra-wrap your ha-hand up,” he stutters to a stop his hands resting on Michael’s biceps and squeezing lightly.

“Guerin,” he says softly. “I’m so-”

“No,” Michael pushes out of his throat as clearly as he can, before he’s moving from his curled up position. It hurts to move his arm at all, and he knows that he should be keeping it raised but this is more important.

Alex’s hands drop from his arms and he looks at Michael with wide terrified eyes, and there is so much guilt swirling in there that Michael wants to look away, but he doesn’t.

“No,” he says again willing Alex to understand.

Alex just shakes his head once and then his gaze drops down to Michael’s hand.

He inhales deeply. “We have to take you to the hospital. Come on, it’s a twenty minute drive.”

Michael looks down at his hand and tries to think of a way that he can tell Alex that he doesn’t actually need a hospital.

But looking at his hand, actually seeing it and connecting the throbbing, excruciating feeling to the way his fingers are all mangled and bloody makes him dizzy.

Michael sways, vision fading at the edges, and he feels the bile in the back of his throat and hopes that he’s not going to throw up right now.

This all makes it really easy for Alex to get him to his feet.

Michael sways and reaches out with his right hand to lean against the low table.

His fingers touch something wet and sticky, but he doesn’t let himself think about that.

Alex appears in front of him suddenly and he looks at him blankly until Alex shows him a dirty old looking first aid kit.

Michael looks at him as he sets it down on the table and opens it.

It may be old and dirty on the outside, but inside everything looks clean and new and recently used.

Michael swallows hard.

He’d known when Alex had said that he was lucky to be homeless that his life had to be less than ideal, but this was more than what he’d been expecting.

Alex takes a bottle of disinfectant, and some gauze. He swallows and gives Michael what he’s sure is supposed to be a reassuring smile but just looks shaky, and like it’s about to slide off his face at any moment.

Michael watches Alex and doesn’t stop him when he gently takes a hold of his arm and starts to clean him up.

It stings, and it hurts even more when Alex wraps the gauze around his fingers, keeping his hand held together tightly and moving efficiently and fast as though he’s had to bandage broken fingers before.

He’s biting his bottom lip, and it makes Michael notice the drying blood in the corner of his mouth, and it draws his eyes to the purpling finger shaped bruises on his jaw and up to the bloody gash on the side of his face that’s also purpling around the edges to form an ugly bruise.

Michael’s fingers twitch involuntarily and he hisses in pain.

Alex wraps the entirety of the gauze around his hand with fast fidgety hands, and then is helping Michael get the rest of his clothes on.

He helps Michael slide his shirt down over his head and arms, and Michael drops his right arm around his shoulders and presses his face into Alex’s neck, inhaling deeply.

Alex freezes which is the opposite of what Michael had been trying to do, but at least he’s not shaking like a machine about to fall apart at any second.

“Alex,” he breathes, and then swallows hard. “I can’t go to the hospital.”

He can feel Alex start to shake again, and tightens his arm around him.

Alex collapses into him, pushing Michael back against the table, and making him raise his left arm until it’s wrapped around his shoulders as well.

Alex presses his face to the side of Michael’s head and exhales shakily.

“You have to,” Alex says lowly. “You need help.”

Michael shakes his head and scrambles to come up with a plausible reason that doesn’t involve his weird cell structure. “I don’t have insurance, and they’ll call CPS and put me in a home and I’ll get tied up in all of this paperwork and won’t be able to graduate and it’ll mess up my scholarship.”

Alex laughs and it sounds like a sob and he tightens his arms around Michael.

“You could lose all motion if you don’t get professional help,” Alex continues sounding almost as out of it as Michael feels. “And I know how important having a full range of motion is to Engineers.”

Michael shuts his eyes tightly. He really doesn’t want to be thinking right now.

He slides the fingers of his right hand into Alex’s hair, and Alex shivers pressing closer into him.

Michael rests his head against Alex’s, pressing his forehead to his own arm and just breathing.

“I’m going to be fine,” Michael whispers. “And I’ll keep being fine as long as I know that you’re safe.”

Alex whimpers low in the back of his throat.

“You have to go home,” Michael says and then swallows and it feels like there are sharp, jagged pieces of glass lodged in his throat.

Alex starts shaking his head immediately.

“You have to, because if you don’t he’s going to hurt you.”

“No,” Alex whimpers. “He’s going to hurt _you_!” He starts breathing fast and his fingers dig into Michael’s back. “But I can’t-I can’t leave you alone until I-I know you’re ok-okay. You have to be okay!”

“I’m okay,” Michael says and pulls back a little to look into Alex’s eyes.

Alex looks at him, tears streaking down his cheeks, eyes dark and wet and so sad and so guilty, and he’s shaking from how fast he’s breathing.

Michael swallows hard, and presses their foreheads together.

“Breathe with me, Alex,” he inhales and exhales slowly and measured until Alex is following his cadence and calming down.

Michael closes his eyes and feels a calming fog blanketing the rapid thoughts bouncing around in his head.

Objectively, he knows that they are both in shock and seeking comfort and that they should stop and try to think rationally, but he just wants to hold Alex a little bit longer, because he’s certain that this will be the last time that he’ll have him in his arms.

“We can’t stay here,” Michael finds himself saying when a few minutes go by and Alex doesn’t seem like he’s going to be moving anywhere.

“I know,” Alex whispers.

Neither of them move.

“Alex,” Michael starts.

“Runaway with me,” Alex blurts out, too fast and Michael feels how he freezes up and hears the click of his jaw clicking shut.

“What?” Michael asks feeling his heart skip a beat in a way that has nothing to do with the pain in his hand.

Alex shakes his head fast, and Michael presses their foreheads together harder.

“Say it again,” Michael whispers.

Alex starts breathing fast again, but he manages to calm himself down by taking a deep breath and holding it.

He exhales and it comes out with a shaky laugh.

“Guerin,” he whispers. “I know it’s only been a few weeks and a couple of hours, but I don’t know if I can live without you.”

Michael feels as though the whole world stops for a second, and he feels his whole body freeze.

And the hot burning pain in his hand brings him back to the present situation.

They’re not safe.

“Alex,” Michael says and tightens his fingers in Alex hair forcing him to look at him in the eyes. “You’re in shock and not thinking straight, and we can’t have this conversation right now, okay?”

Alex blinks at him several times before Michael sees the way his eyes shutter like they had when Michael had pulled away when Alex had leaned in to kiss him, and he starts to untangle himself from Michael.

“I’m not saying no,” Michael blurts out, and Alex stops trying to move away. “I’m just saying. You’ll probably feel different when you’re not traumatized and covered in blood.”

Alex just watches him for a long moment, and Michael counts the spaces between his heartbeats beating in time to the pounding in his hand, one, two, three, four, five.

“Okay,” Alex says slowly and unhappy with a frown knitting his brow together. “I’ll go home. But promise me that you’re going to get help for your hand.”

Michael licks his parched lips. “I promise I’ll get help.”

Alex exhales slowly and the guilt floods his eyes once again.

“I don’t blame you,” Michael says and Alex just blinks rapidly, several times before he’s pulling away from Michael.

This time Michael lets him.

Alex wraps an arm around his chest, and gives Michael a small smile, and he looks so small, standing there in a shaft of dying sunlight, looking at Michael like he knows that this is the last time that they’ll see each other.

Which is probably what makes Michael do it.

“Okay,” he blurts out taking one step forward.

Alex gives him a confused look.

“Yes,” Michael says and licks his lips again. “Let’s go. I have some cash saved up. We can find a cheap place. I don’t think I can live without you either.”

Alex blinks at him rapidly again, before a small smile twitches the corners of his mouth, and before Michael knows it, Alex is crashing into him again.

Michael catches him, biting down on his tongue so that he doesn’t hiss in pain, and Alex presses kisses along his face, before his mouth slides across Michael’s and just like that Michael’s entire brain is wiped clean of every single thought and feeling, except for the feel of Alex’s mouth against his.

Michael kisses him back hard, wrapping his arms around his waist and keeping him close as Alex’s fingers dig into his hair and he kisses him back messy and sloppy and so perfect.

It’s only when Michael tries to slide his hands underneath his shirt that his hand throbs, sending a bolt of sharp pain straight through him that he separates with a pained gasp, pulling away from Alex and cradling his hand to his chest.

“Fuck,” Alex says. “Okay, you go get help for your hand. I have to go, deal with my dad.”

Michael can hear him swallowing hard.

“We’ll meet up behind the school later tonight?” he asks in a low voice as though he’s afraid that Michael changed his mind, and Michael wants to laugh.

He doesn’t know how he missed this happening, but he’s sure now more than ever staring at his mangled hand that he’s sure is never going to work right again, that he would do anything as long as it would keep Alex safe and happy and unharmed.

Michael turns back to Alex.

He raises his right hand and cups Alex’s cheek. Alex leans into the touch heavily and stares at Michael with wide dark eyes.

“I’ll be there,” Michael whispers.

Alex’s eyes flutter close and he sighs in relief, shoulders slumping down. “I’ll see you there.”

Michael watches as he inhales and changes right before his eyes, the softness in his gaze shuttering and how he starts shaking almost immediately.

Michael doesn’t say anything as he leaves the toolshed.

He waits a few seconds in bated silence, listening to the crunching of Alex’s unsteady footsteps.

It’s only when they fade away that he collapses back against the table and lets the pain overwhelm his senses for a bit tired of pushing it back while Alex was standing right in the room with him looking so guilty as though he’d been the one holding the hammer.

He’s gasping in pain, panting into the air and he shuts his eyes tightly, fingers of his right hand clenched.

He feels the way everything in the toolshed vibrates as he starts trembling.

Michael waits until the waves of pain ebb somewhat and inhales deeply before moving again. He grabs his jacket from the couch, and puts it on, hissing as the pain rises for a few excruciating seconds until he presses his hand to his chest, cradling it against his heart.

Michael takes a few breaths and tries to calm his heart rate.

He’s got a lot of things to do before he can met Alex behind the school. It’s a thought that makes him feel light when everything else wants to ground him to the earth.

But first, some acetone.

***

Michael doesn’t think straight or clear or about anything but Isobel and fixing this problem even when the sun is rising and he’s collapsing on Max’s bed exhausted and wanting to sleep for at least twenty-four hours.

All of the acetone he’d drunk before and after finding Isobel was numbing him to anything but the overwhelming tired feeling in his whole entire body.

Michael doesn’t want to deal with the world anymore, and he falls asleep and doesn’t dream about anything at all.


End file.
